ID-591-Jamie Manning

Q: My question is about this office manager position. This person, what’s their skill set? What do they do? When do I need them?
A: There are millions of people running around who are office managers. They range from the glorified secretary who has been self taught to administer the office, all the way up to an MBA who’s got an MBA in management who’s running a multi million dollar business. I would suggest for you to self educate yourself on what it is an office manager does. You could do two things, very simply. One is go to the association of legal administrators, alanet.org. Look in the job bank for the jobs they’ve got posted. Pretend that you’re office administrator looking for a job. Jump on craigslist, jump on the ALA, look in all the different job boards as if you were a office manager and look at the job descriptions and they’ll tell you all the things you’re supposed to be able to do for an office. You’ll also see, from those jobs, what the salary is in your local market and you’ll also see if you look for office manager for a law firm, office manager for anything, you’ll see that they’re all kind of the same job. It’s being in charge of the processes, being in charge of the policies, being in charge of the procedures, being in charge of the time cards, being in charge of basic HR issues, managing the bookkeeper, making sure the bills get paid. The office manager is not a paralegal. Just educate yourself on what the job description is for an office manager.